9.5 Ways to Fight Fat

Looking to lose weight? More specifically- are you looking to burn off body fat? If your answer is 'yes', then read on because winning the battle-of-the-bulge is easier than you think! By understanding and practicing the following 9.5 steps, you'll be well on your way developing the physical fitness level you've always dreamed of.

1. Eat less and more often: Your body is like a furnace, to keep it running moist efficiently, you have to stoke the fire regularly. Eating smaller meals five to seven times a day will help keep your metabolism constantly firing your internal furnace. Loading it down with three heavy meals like your momma fed you as a kid will only serve to slow your metabolism to a crawl.

2. Get Your Rest: Getting a good night's sleep will actually help you lose weight. Eight hours of sleep per night might be ideal, researchers report. Of the 740 people studied, those who slept eight hours per night were leaner than those who got five or six hours of sleep. Participants took blood tests that screened for leptin, a hormone that helps regulate hunger. The amount of leptin in the blood is proportional to body fat. Leptin is believed to reduce appetite. However, obesity is often accompanied by a resistance to leptin and its appetite-suppressing effect. Participants who slept less tended to have lower leptin levels. This loosely translates to: less sleep= less leptin= more hunger and eating.

3. Avoid Injuries: Nothing can slam on the breaks of you reaching your fitness goals than a training injury. When you are laid up with a sore back or a tweaked knee, the fat can accumulate quickly. So don’t go crazy with hitting the heavy bag or practicing new techniques only to sacrifice the form of the movement. Sloppy technique can lead to an injury faster than Santa can deliver presents. Also, avoid over training as this leads to fatigue which in turn creates sloppy technique.

4. Cardio is King: It’s called “fat-burning” for a reason. Doing cardiovascular training like what we do here at Clearwater Boxing Center, raises your core temperature and puts your body in a perfect zone for melting fat. By attending 3-5 classes per week (along with the other suggestions) you’ll see the fat melt off you in no time.

5. Your Scale Will Lie: Muscle weighs more than fat and your bathroom scale can’t tell the difference. While following a workout regime, your body could increase muscle by 10 pounds and only lose 5 pounds of fat. Your scale will show you as being heavier, yet that is not an accurate representation of where you’re at. If you want a real representation, get your body fat measured by a doctor, see how your jeans and t-shirts are fitting you and also take pictures each month. These methods will tell a more realistic story than your bathroom scale will.

6. Watch Your Carbs: As a nation we eat way too many carbs- like processed sugar, pasta, white bread, etc. I’m not saying drop carbs, I’m saying watch what kinds you put into your body. Try to choose quality carbs like brown rice, whole grains, colorful vegetables and oatmeal. Choosing carbs that are low on the glycemic index will help to insure a lower insulin demand, better long-term blood glucose and a reduction in blood lipids (fat).

7. Drink More Water: Water is the essential life giver and can help keep you lean. It keeps you hydrated while you train, flushes your system, suppresses appetite and your metabolic rate can increase with water consumption.

8. Eat Clean Not Fast: Don’t eat fast food!! Proper nutrition is paramount to reaching your fitness goals and fighting body fat. Choose lean beef, chicken, fish and protein shakes rather than a burger at Mcdonalds. Eating these healthy and clean sources of protein helps to increase your protein intake. Clean protein creates more quality muscle and (in case you didn’t know) having more muscle helps to burn body fat!

9. Pre-Pack Your Meals: By pre-packing your meals each day, your chances of having to cave-in and eat the cupcakes a coworker brought in will decrease dramatically! Depending on how many hours you’re at work each day, bringing 3 small meals (see step #1) with you, will help keep the fire stoked and those calories burning! Don’t have time? Bulls**t. Put down the remote at night and take 15 minutes and just get it done.

9.5 Get Educated: Not many schools today teach physical fitness the way it probably should be taught. So, perhaps the best thing you can do to reach your fat burning and fitness goals is to get educated. You need to understand that there is no one-right-way of eating food, or working out, or increasing your muscle mass as everyone’s genetic makeup is different. And because of that, you need to understand that what works for your best friend or that cover model on the magazine may not work for you. Your genetics are different from theirs and should be treated as such. Heck, that whole #2 Step about sleep and Leptin was taken from a muscle magazine called "Reps" that I trecently read! Who knew that getting sleep could affect fat lose huh? So take some time and read books or magazines and find out what’s out there. Now go get educated- and then get busy!